A graphic illustration of music industry madness - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2010/08/13/a-graphic-illustration-of-music-industry-madness/

<comment><USER2> And it is still a simplification: If I read this correctly it is only for the UK. Try to do this for the whole EU (27 royalty collection societies) and their partly overlapping, partly distinct right systems. Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> A spiffy, modern infographic would actually be really useful here. This one is a bit messy.

<comment><USER4>
        This one is a bit messy.

That's the entire point: the flow of rights and royalties in the music industry is a mess.

Making it "spiffy" and "modern" may make it more aesthetically pleasing, but it's not going to make it any less of a mess. That's a problem with the underlying data, not the infographic.

It could certainly be cleaned up a bit because the text is rather hard to read, but I don't think doing that's really going to change anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is there a startup opportunity here?

<comment><USER6> To be truly disruptive here you need to remove the performing rights organisations and (most of the) record labels.

The large record labels have an entrenched position and they use there cash to stop the business being changed. It is happening slowly though. The performing rights groups have an interest in gathering royalties and not promoting music.

Some record labels really do know their niche and are managing to stay afloat (just) through diversification and begging people to support their artists (and thus them). They are normally very small (<10 people) companies.

Spotify is a great product but it's moving too slow for me. They need to invest in revenue streams for artists ASAP (as they have hinted they will so) but I feel they are hampered by their investment partners (large labels) who don't want to see revenue streams for artists that they can't plunder. Without the labels you're not going to get the Lady Gagas that most people want to listen to though so I understand why they went that way.

<comment><USER7> ah here we go again - society bashing!

if you actually spoke to the artists, you'd realise they're pretty happy with the PRS. it does send them cheques after all, which can be a nice thing if you're a struggling artist.

if you fundamentally believe in the role of copyright, then the collection societies have an important role.

<comment><USER6> If a shop plays a radio the radio station pays to play the song so why should the shop pay to hear the song? It's free advertising for the music after all. The collections agencies do a poor job. They try to maximise revenue to justify their existence but hamper exposure for artists.

If you want to move the industry on they are a keystone holding the old business model together. Remove them and the large labels that monopolise shell space, distribution and negotiations with new technology companies and we might get somewhere where more artists and fans are happy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I doubt whether a similar graph for any other equally sized piece of our economy would look any different. Many people profit in many ways from many things. Nothing in the article supports the assertion that the flow is unusually complicated.</comment>


APFS vs. HFS+ Benchmarks on Mac OS High Sierra - <AUTHOR> https://malcont.net/2017/09/apfs-vs-hfs-benchmarks-on-2017-macbook-pro-with-macos-high-sierra/ <comment><USER2> A bit of topic, but since we are talking about MacOS filesystems, if anyone from Apple is listening: please kill the .DS_Store</comment>


Giraffes Added to the Endangered Species List (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/giraffes-silently-slip-endangered-species-list-180961372/#pjgVVUWGgDD6WdVV.01?no-ist <comment><USER2> Some sub-species are dwindling and others are thriving, there are farms in South Africa where they are raised, not unlike how you raise other animals for food consumption and then they do the whole trophy hunting thing with some of them. The hunting funds the the efforts to care for and breed the animals. Depending on the value of the Animals, farmers will spend big money on the care of the animals because there is profit to be made from it. Given how corrupt the governments are in that part of the world and the poverty this may be one of the only realistic options for preserving some species. When the population doesn't have the basics, let alone disposable income, funding for conservation tends to be de-prioritized.

<comment><USER3> > Given how corrupt the governments are in that part of the world and the > poverty this may be one of the only realistic options for preserving some > species. When the population doesn't have the basics, let alone disposable > income, funding for conservation tends to be de-prioritized.

I wish more people could understand this. Hunters paying for high dollar trophy hunts are literally the only thing keeping African megafauna from total extinction at this point. It may hurt for someone who loves animals in a "Disney" sense to understand this, but most hunters have a far deeper love, respect, and appreciation for the natural world than any new age "environmentalist".

We (hunters) have been doing this work for generations now, and it's not pretty. Not everything can be turned into a touchy feely bumper sticker that agrees with your political stance. The reality is that wild animals are a natural resource which must be carefully managed if they are to continue existing.

<comment><USER4> What if we provided the proper funding and... didn't hunt them.

<comment><USER5> Who's "we"? Who's volunteering to replace the large sums of money wealthy foreigners are willing to pay to shoot a lion?

<comment><USER6> It's not just that. If you pay to shoot a lion, it's not going to be a young lion that will sire a lot of children. It will be an old lion that is actually reducing the potential population growth. This is a good thing if we want to increase the number of lions.

Hunting is a necessary evil. In terms of US conservation locally, hunting is fairly highly regulated. It is actually needed in a lot of areas where people go hunting for deer due to natural predators no longer existing. If it wasn't for hunters, there would be large population growths of deer to the point where they begin to kill off other species that rely on the same food sources as well as starve themselves.

In the past, before things were so regulated, it wasn't unusual for populations to be decimated by humans. Passenger Pigeons are now extinct; Deer, Bison, and Elk in certain areas were killed off. Heck, in Ohio, Deer were reintroduced after being decimated, so they would run-a-muck if there was no hunting unless they were to reintroduce wolves to the area (good luck getting people to agree with this).

All of this is due to humans creating imbalances in nature that conservation is now trying to keep in check, and hunting is necessary for certain species which no longer have natural predators, or in the case of lions, to ensure males that will sire more children get a chance to.

Here's some Ohio History on Fauna: [https://ocvn.osu.edu/news/ohios-wild- history-frontier-fauna-...](https://ocvn.osu.edu/news/ohios-wild-history- frontier-fauna-1750-present)

TLDR -- unchecked hunting bad, regulated hunting good

<comment><USER7> > It will be an old lion that is actually reducing the potential population > growth. This is a good thing if we want to increase the number of lions.

Maybe...but nature actually does a pretty good job of taking care of the old lions. But your point stands in other situations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Solutions (not all serious):

      1. Paid trophy hunting where proceeds go towards reservations
      2. Make giraffe burgers common and desirable so we have giraffe farms for manufacturing giraffe meat
      3. Domesticate giraffes and make them the new dog/cat
      4. Similar to #3, progressively breed smaller and smaller giraffes so they're hardier, take less space, and can eat anything. Make them the new deer (how deer are viewed in the US).

<comment><USER9> Arguably chickens and cows are an incredibly successful species because of the economic incentives for food production....

<comment><USER10> But we enjoy the 1% of the rainforests in what wild red fowl live. After feeding billions of humans, men, women and children, we are still so ungrateful that had not granted this species an international "earth-treasure" park for the protection of the chicken and all other species in the same ecosystem. Bos primigenius are now extinct, and we left for die the last real wild horse in Poland after chasing it toward a hole and breaking their legs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Except that they aren't on the endangered species list, they are on the vulnerable species list:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giraffe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giraffe)

This has been your regular reminder that "endangered" is a technical term with a specific meaning, and that misusing it makes it harder to focus global resources on species that are actually endangered. Thank you for your attention, please return to freedom and consumption.

<comment><USER12> From the Wikipedia article you mentioned:

> _Two subspecies, the West African giraffe and the Rothschild giraffe, have > been classified as endangered, as wild populations of each of them number in > the hundreds._

<comment><USER13> Okay, so two of nine extant subspecies are endangered... And the other seven are not.

<comment><USER11> And also, to call Marty out on not reading the article, the first paragraph of TFA makes it clear and obvious that the article agrees with my interpretation and knew it's headline was factually incorrect, but chose sensationalism anyway:

>announced yesterday that it was moving the giraffe from a species of Least Concern to Vulnerable status in its Red List of Threatened Species report. That means the animal faces extinction in the wild in the medium-term future if nothing is done to minimize the threats to its life or habitat. The next steps are endangered, critically endangered, extinct in the wild and extinct.

<comment><USER14> Yes, it's bizarre that the article's title is falsified in the first paragraph. But maybe the title is using "endangered" in a nontechnical way.

<comment><USER15> I'd agree that it's in a non-technical way. Most people only think of "the endangered species list". Colloquially, "Not on" would be on Least Concern (which is every species that's not on anything higher), and anything higher than (including Vulnerable) that would be "on the list". The paragraph your parent quotes further explains the details as to what specifically was happened, which also educates people that what they may believe is a binary state (on/off the list) is actually more granular than that.

Edit to add: looks like there's a step between Least Concern and Vulnerable: Near-threatened. Also, the definition of Vulnerable is "faces a high risk of endangerment in the medium term."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endangered_species](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endangered_species)

<comment><USER14> And quibbling aside, it's a horrible situation. We are for sure in the midst of an anthropogenic mass extinction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's like we're going back and killing off the megafauna we missed the first time around.

<comment><USER17> I don't think we've gone back to it, it's just taking us longer than we expected.

<comment><USER16> It seems to me that we paused in killing them off so rapidly from ~10,000 years ago when we stopped spreading around the world (there were a few stragglers, but the bulk of them were gone by then) to ~19th century when industrialization and globalization started letting us destroy all habitats everywhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'll suggest again that we should legalize fraud in some narrow cases regarding faking endangered animal parts.

Let startups and big corporations manufacture convincing fake shark fins, rhino horns and giraffe tails, and mail it to anyone who would try their luck passing it off as the real thing.

</comment><comment><USER19> Compassion and foresight are in short supply these days.

</comment><comment><USER20> This article (and most comments here) assumes that all African countries are the same.

Hans Rosling of gapminder made it clear how different they are. South Africa is very dependent on tourism.

And it's not just SA National Parks. The municipality of Tshwane/Pretoria has reintroduced giraffe and other herbivores into some of its reserves. And now it collects more revenue from ticket sales and property tax.

</comment><comment><USER21> "many giraffes are slaughtered just for their tails, which are considered a status symbol and have been used as a dowry when asking a bride's father for his daughters hand in marriage in some cultures."

Humans are the most wasteful species.

<comment><USER22> I would say more that humans have evolved to be very interested in status (as stated in the text you quoted) and that wasting resources is high on the list of how to show your high status. Status used to be critical to survival when being kick out of the tribe was basically a death sentence. Tim Urban wrote a good article about this[1] with some good ideas to ponder about the value of caring about what other people think about you.

[1][https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/06/taming-mammoth-let-peoples- op...](https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/06/taming-mammoth-let-peoples-opinions-run- life.html)

<comment><USER23> "Our bodies and minds are built to live in a tribe in 50,000BC, which leaves modern humans with a number of unfortunate traits, one of which is a fixation with tribal-style social survival in a world where social survival is no longer a real concept."

James Damore will be eager to know more about this theory.

<comment><USER24> Yeah in a world where people are known to commit suicide because of rejection from their peers, in a world where people die homeless on the streets of the richest cities due to rejection from their peers, I would strongly disagree that social survival is no longer a real concept.

<comment><USER25> Yeah, very much alive in blue collar and white collar jobs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It seems that if you use Microsoft Azure for image recognition you would come to the conclusion that there are giraffe's everywhere: [http://aiweirdness.com/post/171451900302/do-neural-nets- drea...](http://aiweirdness.com/post/171451900302/do-neural-nets-dream-of- electric-sheep)

Maybe it's because Microsoft worked on a project to help conservationists protect giraffes: [https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/machinelearning/2016/04/...](https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/machinelearning/2016/04/11/how- microsoft-is-helping-conservationists-protect-the-masai-giraffe/)

This might be an example of how a specialized dataset that was used to train an AI for a specific task, was later taken as part of another dataset to train a more general AI and the result was an AI with a "distorted view" of the world.

</comment><comment><USER27> African fauna are finished. Is there any doubt of this?

Over a billion more people there by 2050 and the continent will be the hardest hit by climate change. We're just burying our heads in the sand about the reality of it.

<comment><USER28> We Europeans (and to some extent Asians and Americans) killed our local fauna to make space for our cities, our farms and our factories.

Now Africa is growing very quickly. We should let it grow as we once did. Saying that they don't have the right to build cities and factories, since African nature is so nice and our isn't anymore, is a bit Euro centric.

<comment><USER29> I agree in theory, but (in my opinion) the difference is that we now realize how much we screwed things up in other places, so we don't want more people to do it. It's a flawed argument, seeing as modern civilization isn't really doing everything it can to prevent climate change, so the obvious, easy answer is to not let underdeveloped civilizations follow in our footsteps.

Again, I don't disagree with your reasoning, and it is easy to back up by saying everyone else has done it, why would we stop them from doing it. I guess my argument against this point is that every society in the world should be doing their best to try to prevent things like this, so we shouldn't just let people do obviously terrible things to the environment, just because we have previously done it.

This is obviously a high-level response, not getting into particulars, but I hope you get the point at least.

<comment><USER30> I was thinking how maybe industrialization in general led to the killing off of many of the larger and more rare fauna around the globe so would that mean that Africa following in our more industrialized footsteps, even if it isn't us directly guiding their hands in doing so, is still somewhat our fault for inspiring that notion?

People cite their distaste and dislike of American and European all over the world yet the vast majority of those places champion all things American or European / white, if only in things like food, music, entertainment, fashion, and lifestyle -- if not more / everything. I know it's not "our" responsibility after a certain point so I'm just being curious on a very "surface level" here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> cup-of-tea If you're planning to have children, they might not be able to see a giraffe in their life. Think about that for a moment.

<comment><USER31> While I understand (and agree with to some extent) the sentiment, I hate that this is the first and most prevalent argument. Instead of worrying about the loss of individuals that make up a species, the concern always seems to be what humans are going to miss out on being able to look. If we focused more on valuing the individual organisms and how we interact with them, then maybe we wouldn't get into this position so frequently.

<comment><USER32> Why should we mourn the loss of a species?

We lost species all the time, it's a normal part of evolution.

Also, why is it sadder that humans lead to their extinction than when other species extinct each other?

<comment><USER33> The ridiculous rate at which it is happening is not a normal part of evolution. It is the 6th great extinction event known. [1]

Its "sadder" because its preventable. Humans are self aware and know that we are causing this. If we change our behavior it wont happen.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction)

<comment><USER34> There is nothing "normal" about evolution, unless you include everything in it. Humans are a results of evolution, like any other species. And great extinctions are completely natural.

<comment><USER35> Generally mass extinctions weren't directly caused by the actions of one particular species, though…

<comment><USER36> Except that isn't necessarily true. Wasn't one of the first major extinction events caused by over-oxygenation of the environment?

<comment><USER35> 1\. Cyanobacteria aren't one species and 2. on the whole, oxygenation didn't work out so well for the anaerobic bacteria that caused it, did it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I know this opinion is probably going to be wildly unpopular on an engineering-centred newsfeed, but most of our problems could be solved by going back to a more primitive lifestyle or at least trying to emulate it. So far ever since we tried to solve a problem with technology a multitude of new ones have sprung in their place. Solve lack of food - people form progressively larger living spaces until disease wipes them out. Solve disease by using medicine - the disease mutates until we have no more antibiotics to prevent it. If nothing kills us off we start multiplying exponentially until climate change and pollution reach levels incompatible with life. And to what end? From what I see most people living in the developed world have a pretty uninspiring lifestyle - sedentary, devoid of meaning(probably less relevant here since most people here are brimming with enthusiasm for their job, but that is not the case for most people), depressed and isolated. On the flipside of such benefits as buying meat in supermarkets and Netflix-watching leisure we're ruining the climate, killing off most living creatures that we have no use for and condemning most of the ones that we do need to a life that is most unenviable to put it lightly, and consequently tightening the noose around our necks ever tighter.

For the majority of the homo sapiens' history we were hunter-gatherers and were doing fine because that is how we were designed by nature. Because our population didn't spiral out of control or was at least tempered by the amount of food, our hunting and gathering didn't throw whole ecosystems out of balance. Small communities offered close relationships that are rare to find now in our multi-million strong cities. Hard conditions permitted for only the most fit to survive so there was no need for extreme medical intervention.

I find this whole narrative parallels how when people who grow tired of cities and go into the forest to try out that lifestyle at first completely disregard, say, the Native American's techniques to build houses and try to build cottages until a tree almost kills them when it barberchairs and even if they do manage to build something that resembles what they're used to they have to abandon it quickly because it's just hard to build and maintain, doesn't go well with fire and so on. Then over trial-and-error they eventually come back to the original Native American design because it was tried for millennia and can't be improved any further.

So this very much reminds me how now everyone says how sitting is bad for you - yeah, no wonder. Or how the obesity sky-rocketed when some unscrupulous or ill-advised agencies decided to recommend that ridiculous amount of carbohydrates and sugars aren't bad for you, but fats are. The physique and athletic ability that so many people strive for by going to the gym was effortless for hunter-gatherers because they didn't overeat and physical activity were a part of their daily life(not to say that hunting all day is effortless, just the physique came as a by-product of surviving).

Of course, our population has grown much too large for everyone to go into the forests, so we've kind of screwed ourselves already by burning that bridge, however I think we can at least steer humanity in the right direction by looking at where we came from and trying to chart our future path using that.

<comment><USER38> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_bottleneck](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_bottleneck) may be a starting point for surveying the current hypotheses about the human population bottlenecks that have occurred in the past. You're also expressing a fundamental misunderstanding of evolutionary selection mechanisms, resulting in incoherent conclusions. (most egregious example: "Hard conditions permitted for only the most fit to survive so there was no need for extreme medical intervention." The "most fit" for a selection lie at a tail end of a distribution. There is "no need for extreme medical intervention" only when ignoring the concerns of more representative samples of the distribution.)

<comment><USER37> Can you explain what is incoherent in thinking that in times where you can't survive unless you're mostly physically fit enough to do so without medical intervention? I understand that most physically fit will be an outlier, but my point is that the average fitness would have been better because of more fierce natural selection due to lack of medicine.

I'm genuinely interested in hearing criticisms about this hypothesis since it's been brewing in my head for a while and I figured the best way to test it is to put under some form of peer-review.

<comment><USER38> The average fitness only increases while the species' environmental is stable. Humans are a _famously_ migratory species that also compulsively reshapes it's environment. (see also: non-human species in human dominated environments experiencing accelerated evolution)

<comment><USER37> I think the misunderstanding comes from me using the term "fit" without actually specifying the precise meaning. I meant it more as having better general health in the colloquial sense(e.g. not having life-threatening congenital diseases) rather than fitness in the Darwinian sense where certain characteristics allow one to prevail in natural selection.

Do you have any suggestions on what I could read to better understand the issue at hand and get a better idea of what I'm trying to talk about? Perhaps a good book on the history of ancient humans?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Can we add (2016) to the title?

<comment><USER40> Yes we can! Thanks.</comment></comment>


The real reason everyone hates Chinese rich kids - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-10-01/children-of-the-yuan-percent-everyone-hates-china-s-rich-kids <comment><USER2> am i supposed to feel sorry for the spoiled rich kids who run over and kill others with impunity?</comment>


Formality – An efficient programming language and proof assistant - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/maiavictor/formality <comment><USER3> I haven't looked much into this yet -- it seems very neat! -- but I wonder how hard it would be to create some kind of tactic language for this, akin to what the more conventional proof assistants like Coq, HOL, etc. have. If done minimalistically, it shouldn't blow up the project all that much, though ideally the system would be expandable with user-defined tactics. Not sure whether that tactic language would be inside the Formality language itself (like Coq does) or inside some already-existing language that is meta with respect to the Formality language (like HOL does). Having an already established language for that seems more convenient, but I'm not sure.

<comment><USER4> Not pretending to be an expert but I did a lot of proofs in Agda (a related subject was my bachelor's thesis). In what way do you find tactics useful? I personally find Coq having bunch of mini-languages inside, one being a tactic language confusing. I think it's a non-optimal (though viable) solution to the problem. I think, as always, lisp gets it right. Computing is all about abstractions and sometimes even abstractions that can talk between each other and the best way to approach this problem is homoiconicity. I think agda gets it right, if you write macros helping you solve the problem at hand you can write very elegant and readable proofs. I understand that tactics are very popular in proof automation community and I'm very likely very wrong. But this is just a reflection of my experience. I'm currently writing my own dependently typed PL and am debating merits of tactics. So far I can't find a reason to add them provided you give enough lispness to your language.

<comment><USER3> My experience with this kind of stuff: done some Coq by myself and some HOL in class.

Generally, the distinguishing feature of tactics is that they provide backward reasoning, instead of forward reasoning, what a verification engine would be written around. Mind that I haven't worked with any proof system yet besides Coq and HOL, so my opinion might be far out, but I think backward reasoning is a very nice way to construct proofs, especially in the context of a proof assistant.

Aren't things like algorithms for simple automated proving more easily embedded in a tactic language than in a forward reasoning language? When reasoning backward, one naturally reduces the statement to prove to simpler and simpler statements, and at some point they become simple enough to be handled by some automatic prover. (auto/omega/... in Coq, PROVE_TAC/COOPER_TAC in HOL) When reasoning forward, I don't see how one would go about using automated provers like that, but it's likely I'm missing some idea here.

> I'm currently writing my own dependently typed PL

Awesome! I'm all for writing interesting new languages and implementations, especially in this area. Once you've got something to show, be sure to post here on HN, since people might enjoy looking around. :) (If it doesn't get lost in the swarm of submissions...)

<comment><USER4> I think forward reasoning works only because the underlying type theory is intuitive. When I approach proofs in agda, I simply approach it the same way I write haskell code. "You have bunch of cosets and you wanna go to group." You have objects (proofs) around and you want to construct an instance of a type (theorem) so you start with functions (lemmas) that give objects of desired types. Again, I'm not very familiar with Coq (only agda) but I suppose by backwards reasoning you mean the last unconstructed type in your proof is the type with highest level of abstraction. On the other hand, in agda it's the first one because either you already know a function (lemma) returning this type and need to construct it's arguments (assumptions) or you can use an anonymous function (implication introduction).

This is a totally random and not a well-thought-out statement but to me it seems like the difference between agda and Coq seems like the difference between purely functional and imperative programming.

<comment><USER3> I think I just need to try out something like Agda before I make any more claims :) Does Agda have something that can automatically prove small formulas in e.g. pure predicate logic?

Backwards reasoning works something like this: to prove 'forall n: P n', it is _sufficient_ to prove 'P 0' and 'P n => P (succ n)', so if you have 'forall n: P n' as your so-called proof goal, you can use the induction tactic to transform that into two goals: 'P 0' and 'P n => P (succ n)'. You then have to separately prove both goals. The tactic system then basically build the actual proof by putting everything on a stack and applying in reverse: once you've proved both goals, it knows it can apply the forward-reasoning induction proof function to construct a proof of the original statements from the two proofs you gave.

> the difference between agda and Coq seems like the difference between purely > functional and imperative programming.

Bold, bold :) I'll have to try Agda before I can comment on that. Coq proofs do seem a bit inperative, so there's that.

<comment><USER5> > The tactic system then basically build the actual proof by putting > everything on a stack and applying in reverse: once you've proved both > goals, it knows it can apply the forward-reasoning induction proof function > to construct a proof of the original statements from the two proofs you > gave.

In Agda, you would type something like `nat-ind ?x ?y` into a hole of type (forall m -> P m). Then ?x becomes a hole of type (P zero) and ?y becomes a hole of type (forall n -> P n -> P (suc n)), and you can fill these holes with proofs at your own leisure. It does not feel all that different from using `induction m` in Coq. In Agda, you'd normally implement your "reflective tactics" as functions, or you'd write macros if you really need them (e.g. for ring solvers), but there is no separate tactic language and proofs are never tactic scripts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm reading up on the author's Symmetric Interaction Calculus now, this stuff is wild and fun!

<comment><USER7> Interesting:

" _Optimality, no garbage-collection, EVM and GPU compatibility are all possible due to compilation to the symmetric interaction calculus, a lightweight computing model that combines good aspects of the Turing Machine and the Lambda Calculus. In order for this to work, Formality enforces some compile-time restrictions based on Elementary Affine Logic._ "

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Do you have any posts explaining how this avoids GC? At first, it seemed to be that the underlying calculus only uses variables once, but in your examples variables are sometimes repeated. How do the two relate?

<comment><USER9> The creator (@SrPeixinho) answered some questions on the Haskell subreddit [1]. Looks like you can "box" (his term) variables to allow duplication/copying and it's all tracked statically somehow. (or will be - <USER2> sure if that part is fully implemented).

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/9ojicd/sneak_peek_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/9ojicd/sneak_peek_of_formality_a_language_combining/)

<comment><USER10> Linear logic and affine logic (the latter of which SrPeixinho refers to in that Reddit post) let you use an assumption only once in a proof. Their counterparts in functional programming are called linear and affine types [0]; the arguments of functions with such types are restricted to being used only once in the function's body. This constraint lets you do some interesting things in compiling and optimizing languages built around these types, and in particular it makes garbage collection trivial.

Linear and affine types are pretty hot right now in the small world of type theory and functional programming. SrPeixinho's work with his collaborators is aimed at building a language for the Ethereum VM that might actually make it possible to write smart contracts that don't blow up in your face. It's good stuff. Search his posts on Reddit to see what he's up to [1].

0\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curry–Howard_correspondence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curry–Howard_correspondence)

1\. [https://www.reddit.com/user/SrPeixinho](https://www.reddit.com/user/SrPeixinho)

<comment><USER11> I think affine types force usage _at least_ once, while linear types force it _exactly_ once. IIRC, this is because linear logic rejects both contraction and weakening while affine logic rejects only contraction.

I'm not sure exactly how this ties into avoiding a GC, but my guess is that rejecting type contraction allows a kind of "reference counting" at the type level.

<comment><USER10> I was trying to avoid being too detailed, but the distinction is actually that linear types require function arguments to be used exactly once and affine types require that they be used at most once. So affine types allow constant functions, but linear types don't. A good place to start for anyone interested in learning more is the Wikipedia article on substructural types [0].

And, yes, you're right that these type systems effectively implement reference counting at the type level. In practice, linear and affine types are used alongside more general types to permit controlled copying and destruction, which tends to look like manual (but type-enforced) memory allocation and deallocation around the edges.

0\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substructural_type_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substructural_type_system)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Running a Nat representation of Zero/Succ on a GPU, oh yeah :-)

</comment><comment><USER7> Type variables are in the same syntax as normal variables?

<comment><USER13> Yes, having separate "sub-languages" for types and terms is a hindrance if we want to have types which depend on values (AKA dependent types).

Besides the obvious advantage that we only need one language, we can also get away with using a single abstraction form (dependent functions) to implement both normal functions and type variables (e.g. "big lambdas" in SystemF).

There are still reasons we might want to avoid doing everything with dependent functions: in particular, it's not obvious (or possibly even decidable) whether a dependent function's argument can be erased or not (i.e. whether parametricity holds for that argument). For this reason Conor McBride has argued that languages should have a parametric "forall" quantifier (like Haskell's existing type variables) as well as the "pi" quantifier found in dependently typed languages (e.g. [https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/390dyx/conor_mcbri...](https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/390dyx/conor_mcbride_type_inference_needs_revolution/) ).

Note that both quantifiers would still be used within one language, and both could be used with both types and values.

I'm not sure how/whether substructural types/logics like the linear and affine features of this language would interact with this distinction though.</comment></comment>


Top 35 Startups in Tech - July 2012 - <AUTHOR> http://www.startupplays.com/blog/top-35-startups-in-tech-that-techcrunch-missed-out-on-july-2012/

<comment><USER2> There's a reason TechCrunch passed on them. Except for Zagster (Bicycle Rental Marketplace), Tweaky (Marketplace for small website changes) and maybe RocketLease (Electronic Lease Applications), these startups strike me as painfully mediocre.

<comment><USER3> Tom here from Scirra (#7 on the list).

Quite brutal to review all 35 of them as 'painfully mediocre' in under 30 minutes!

<comment><USER2> Hey Tom

I've actually played AirSpace and your product looks great. Sorry I lobstered* you in with the rest. The marketplace is an interesting concept - I wonder if you'll eventually earn more from that than your product?

I'll take a closer look at those startups. There may be a few undervalued ideas because their names are bad or copy is generic.

*Do consider changing the Lobster font. It's the new Comic Sans).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I question the credibility of such lists. The article does not base any sort of criteria apart from "cool" and "purposeful" in judging these firms. Are these compiled in terms of user accounts/web traffic/vc funding levels etc, besides they are overwhelmingly "web" oriented. To keep web 2.0 running we need network 2.0 and infrastructure 2.0 running and innovating. Its sort of sad that very little press is devoted to making web 2.0 possible.

</comment><comment><USER5> I love lists like these - esp. when they are the little guys you never hear about.

</comment><comment><USER6> Top in what regard? I understand that they were startups "TechCrunch missed out on," but this looks just like a list, not a ranking.

</comment><comment><USER7> Super cool !

</comment><comment><USER8> *that techcrunch missed out on</comment>


Aussie senator quotes rapper in speach on NSA whistleblower - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Vn8MIGHR__0

<comment><AUTHOR> ref. rap news #19 [http://thejuicemedia.com/](http://thejuicemedia.com/)</comment>


Facebook Pay - <AUTHOR> https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/11/simplifying-payments-with-facebook-pay/ <comment><USER2> Hasn't this existed for a while?

e.g. 2016 article: [https://www.cnet.com/how-to/use-facebook-messenger-to- send-a...](https://www.cnet.com/how-to/use-facebook-messenger-to-send-and- receive-money/)

Is this a rebrand?

<comment><USER3> I have FB Payments transactions between friends from August 2015. Looks like over 275 transactions total. Of every money transfer service, its the fastest bar none. It was shockingly good at what it did, given that it was an interface between legacy banks, I hope it stays as high quality.

<comment><USER4> > Of every money transfer service, its the fastest bar none

How is it faster than other instant transfer services, like Zelle or Venmo?

<comment><USER3> If I stand in front of an ATM, and someone sends me money, I can take it out seconds later. Its a near instantaneous transfer. Zelle is about as fast, but facebook has been around longer, and has been instant since it launched, long before Venmo added it (and charges for it.) Zelle is also only instant within the Zelle network. Then again maybe every bank ive ever used with FB is within the FB network of instant banks?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm happy that there's more and more effort to help people pay each other without punishing fees or needing physical currency.

But ugh... FB Pay, Google Pay, Apple Pay, Venmo, Paypal... I hate thinking I'll need so many systems connected to my bank account to send or receive money. Feels like too much complexity and risk.

I know we're fatigued on "blockchain nonsense," but I'm eager and hopeful to get to a point where there's some sort of accepted (and widely used) international standard for digital currency. The traditional banking industry has just made it too hard and too expensive to move money.

<comment><USER6> This is one of those comments that is just so...American. I'm also an American, living in the UK, and the friction inherent in the USA banking system contributes to reverse culture shock. In pretty much any EU country I've been to you can pay anyone in seconds from any bank account, any amount, for free, just by knowing their account number and sort code. In the USA instead, banks spend millions trying to handle small pieces of paper (checks) with zero interest in modernising. Oh well.

<comment><USER5> Fair point that this may be a uniquely American problem, but it does point out that there's still a need for an international standard that works across the world. I'd like to be able to pay anyone worldwide without an unneeded intermediary like Facebook.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm surprised they didn't have something like this sooner. I'm sure there are other tools, but the only one that I know of that people use to send payments to each other regardless of bank account is Venmo.

Being able to send money to other people easily is a huge part of living in a digital world. We may not trust FB with our payment data, but millions of people probably will.

<comment><USER8> WeChat Pay is ubiquitous in China, and has largely replaced all cash use. I'm surprised nobody in the US is worried about Facebook surveilling their financial transactions.

<comment><USER9> What transaction rates does WeChat Pay charge and how do they compare to Stripe/BrainTree/PayPal?

<comment><USER10> If you are just using WePay for buying food, as a customer you don't pay anything extra. For store owners, let's say a small shop that sells breakfast buns, the money to pay through WePay is usually sent directly to the owner's WePay wallet.

<comment><USER9> that'd be illegal in the US, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Seems like it's just Paypal but on Facebook.

At least it's not backed by some wasteful and unnecessary blockchain nonsense.

<comment><USER12> It could still be backed by a blockchain - in fact, it would make sense to use some kind of hash chain, because then you have a verifiable and replayable ledger / event store / replication log / whatever.

It doesn't need to be distributed and/or use proof of work/stake to be blockchain.

I totally understand the blockchain apathy though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Oh, it's a Venmo competitor. I guess it's useful in that you already have your friends loaded in so you can know you're sending the right person money.

<comment><USER14> I don't like Venmo at all. It's hard to get money out and I'm always wary of bank account details stored by a startup. It's good to see this coming from FB and for this specific instance, a bad startup hopefully getting killed. For HN crowd which often defaults to hating FB, I'd say its a tool and like hammer it can be used for good and bad. The good things it has done is literally start and support revolutions, connect long lost friends, keep up with remote relatives and so on. I think their newsfeed algo sucks as they give far more weight to groups and funny video posts then actual friends news but hope that improves.

<comment><USER15> > I'm always wary of bank account details stored by a startup

Venmo is owned by PayPal

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why would anyone use this? Does anyone trust it?

<comment><USER17> I'd use it.

For example, my roommates and I already have a facebook messenger group chat where we discuss everything. It would be great to have financial matters settled inline as well instead of separately.

Anything from chipping in for more cleaning products to splitting some pizzas to paying rent, things we already do but are complicated by collecting cash irl.

And I could extend this use case to all of the 1:1 conversations I have going on in facebook messenger. I'm not sure how it's not obviously useful unless you simply don't use facebook and don't know anyone who does, which describes none of the people I know in real life.

<comment><USER3> Youve been able to press the $ since 2015 to send money in group chats.

What it doesnt do that would be even better is include a clone of splitwise. To keep track of debt and settle it once a month would be handier than constantly throwing cash back and forth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Just trying to be Devil's advocate here: So in the US, if I have an option to use Apple Pay where the company can not know my payment transaction details and whose business model is not ads-centric, why would I go for Facebook Pay? In Facebook Pay FAQ [1] they are not saying at all that the payment transaction data will not be used to target ads.

[1] [https://pay.facebook.com/security-and- protection/](https://pay.facebook.com/security-and-protection/)

</comment><comment><USER19> Absolutely not.

</comment><comment><USER20> This makes sense if you ever used Facebook Marketplace. Usually in those transactions, most people use Venmo, Cash app, or Apple Pay.

</comment><comment><USER21> That and the telescreen can fuck off. Zuck has done enough damage to society. Even Cthulhu is shaking his head at him.

</comment><comment><USER22> This totally doesn't mean they're giving up on Libra!

Just effectively.

</comment><comment><USER23> No.

</comment><comment><USER24> Copying WeChat, which isn't a good thing btw.

<comment><USER25> WeChat is the #1 application in China, which i think gets > 80% of usage, last I checked. WePay / mobile payments are _incredibly_ popular. Why _wouldn't_ they try to copy what is working in such a hugely popular app?

(I'm not saying that FB is using this to try to get into China, but more that the sample of "what's working in the industry" shouldn't be limited to just the US.)

<comment><USER24> Because it's not good that one company knows everything about your life. If I have to keep explaining why I won't bother.</comment></comment></comment>


Facelift: MyClean - <AUTHOR> http://kyrobeshay.com/post/49864838121/facelift-myclean

<comment><USER2> Great job. I actually thought about using them previously due to the good reviews, but did not want to ever have to look at their hideous old site. I'm going to try them out now!

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice work. Would be interesting to see the impact on conversions.

Some implementation critique:

\- there is a small delay between moving the slider or selecting service level, and the price updating. It's not long enough to pretend it's doing work on the server, but enough to look 'broken' and a little annoying.

\- the testimonial picture transition looks harsh, I believe a cross-fade effect would be more appropriate.

</comment><comment><USER4> Awesome work Kyro

</comment><comment><USER5> Nice job Kyro!</comment>


Guess Who Rated This Movie: Identifying Users Through Subspace Clustering - <AUTHOR> http://arxiv.org/abs/1408.2055

<comment><USER2> Previous discussion [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8244553](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8244553)

</comment><comment><USER2> This method is interesting in that it provides a new application for subspace clustering. However the subspace clustering method used (GPCA) has poor performance compared to newer methods like Sparse/Low-Rank Subspace Clustering. I'd like to see it done with one of these more modern approaches.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if any government agencies are providing grants for this project. Obviously this is me being a paranoiac (which I'm not normally) but this seems like an excellent start to identifying individuals whose speech you don't like.</comment>


COVID19-Expert Judgmental Forecast-Survey4-20200310.pdf (2020) - <AUTHOR> https://works.bepress.com/mcandrew/1/ <comment><AUTHOR> Results from Survey 4 (administered March 9-10, 2020)

1\. Experts predict a four-fold rise in reported cases in the US over the next week. They predict 1819 total cases (80% uncertainty interval: 823-6204 cases) of COVID-19 will be reported by the CDC on Monday March 16th, more than 4 times the CDC reported number of cases as of Monday, March 9th.

2\. The majority of experts (20/21, 95%) expect COVID-19 will reach community- level spread in the US

3\. Experts expect that community-level spread will occur in the US within 3 weeks (80% uncertainty interval: 0-10 weeks).

4\. Experts anticipate 44 US states will report cases of COVID-19 within one week (80% uncertainty interval: 39-48 states).

5\. Experts believe that only 13% (80% uncertainty interval: 4-30%) of all COVID-19 infections (symptomatic and asymptomatic) in the US were reported to the CDC as of Monday, March 9th. This implies that as of the beginning of this week there were between 1410 and 10575 undiagnosed infections with COVID-19 in the US.

6\. Experts believe that nationwide hospitalizations for COVID-19 will peak in May.

7\. The above results include answers from 21 experts. Experts who have participated in the survey twice are listed in the table below. The names of those who participated this week are in bold</comment>


Google suspends Huawei's Android support (updated) - <AUTHOR> https://www.newsbreakapp.com/n/0LtrybGj?s=a99&pd=02F4387r <comment><USER2> Anyway no google in china and why this is acceptable. Free both side.</comment>


Day in the life of a Galois intern - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ezyang.com/2010/08/day-in-the-life-of-a-galois-intern/

<comment><USER2> Pretty nice office. One thing I forgot about working at a small company is that people tend to enjoy working there, which means they make their office nice. I work with a bunch of 9-5ers that are indifferent about anything but their paycheck, so that's all we get. Oh, and grey carpet and grey cubicle walls that match the grey blinds quite nicely!

We do have Haskell though!

<comment><USER3> I'm now very curious about what company has 9-5-drone culture, _and_ haskell!

(Also, I miss-clicked and down-voted you by mistake I'm really sorry, I upvoted a couple of your other comments)

<comment><USER4> The finance industry (... guesses wildly)?

<comment><USER2> Exactly!

The reality is that in large organizations, the people that decide that a nap room is "unprofessional" are not the same people that decide what programming decisions to make. If I didn't like the programming decisions (or programmers), I wouldn't bother.

But it is nice to be reminded that at some companies, the same people make both decisions, and the results are good :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just to follow up on this, Edward himself is giving a tech talk on Tuesday, on SAT solving:

* [http://www.galois.com/blog/2010/08/19/tech-talk-abcbridge-fu...](http://www.galois.com/blog/2010/08/19/tech-talk-abcbridge-functional-interfaces-for-aigs-and-sat-solving/)

Also, videos of other tech talks at Galois are up on vimeo: <http://vimeo.com/channels/galois>

Edward's been an amazing intern. He'll do great things.

</comment><comment><USER5> The Galois tech talks are definitely worth attending if you're in Portland and interested in CS-y stuff (especially, but far from limited to, FP/Haskell). Unfortunately my new job makes it impossible for me.

</comment><comment><USER6> Thanks for the great day in the life post. Would be interested to see a similar post focusing on the technical aspects of the project. Maybe that's the tech talk, but a post would be helpful to for people who can't make it in person. : )</comment>


UKit – Intuitive mobile-first DIY website builder for businesses and startups - <AUTHOR> https://ukit.com

<comment><USER2> We've taken a good look at the product, lovely interface and ux! Easy to use on a desktop.

I have a question about mobile. What is your plan for devices regarding the Editor itself? Do you plan to go native?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not in the next 10-12 months surely. Some apps will be in development to allow users to make some modifications on the go but the good old desktop will be still needed otherwise!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> An app for edting the site in a tablet would be wonderful.

<comment><AUTHOR> Spot on! The website builder is now in open-beta but that app is surely in the cards. Thank you for the suggestion!</comment></comment>


Hypocrisy in the Brendan Eich Case - <AUTHOR> http://thucydidespress.com/2014/04/07/extraordinary-hypocrisy-surrounding-brendan-eich-case/

<comment><USER2> Being a hater douchebag is not ok. Even if you're smart at your thing. Get over it. Try not to be that douchebag</comment>


A map of the epic struggle of FOSS against the Empire of Microsoft. - <AUTHOR> http://mshiltonj.com/software_wars/current/

<comment><USER2> This is silly, this makes it look like all open source or alternatives projects were made to attack Microsoft, or vice-versa. Development of new solutions/alternatives is not always _against_ something existing. It could be to serve other purposes, other markets, other clients/users. This is not a zero-sum game.

<comment><USER3> It's almost as if it was meant as a joke.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Title is fail. For some reason I don't think iPods or Gmail count as FOSS... among many others on that list.</comment>


Ghostbuster: Easier headless testing with PhantomJS (and CoffeeScript) - <AUTHOR> http://thechangelog.com/post/9412707640/ghostbuster-headless-testing-with-phantomjs-and-coffeesc <comment><USER2> The UTF-8 test results with ✓ for success and ✗ for failure are just adorable.

<comment><USER3> Those (and similar symbols) have actually been used in several Node testing frameworks. See e.g. nodeunit (<https://github.com/masylum/testosterone>), Vows (<http://vowsjs.org/>), and Testosterone (<https://github.com/masylum/testosterone>).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> PhantomJS seems like something I should pay more attention to.

<comment><USER5> PhantomJS is pretty cool. There are some super rough areas I had to deal with to get this working, but I hope they can improve it and make it more awesome. I've gotta file some bugs actually..

I was just happy to get the link traversal test passing. So many tears to get that reliable.

<comment><USER6> This is my PhantomJS experience as well!

What mitigated this a bit though, is the actual Phantom codebase on-top of Webkit is really small. So when you need to figure out exactly what it's doing, it's super easy to just dig into the src.

I'm hoping more visibility as CLI JS (and/or Coffescript) testing becomes more mainstream, it will bump up the # of contributors.</comment></comment></comment>


Jotpress = Twitter + Posterous - darius-keich http://dksays.posterous.com/jotpress-twitter-posterous

<comment> sean-oreilly I've been using it for a few weeks and found it refreshing not having to maintain a blog to post my crap. And I do it all from my phone.

</comment><comment> darius-keich I've played around with it as well and found the tweet like feature to be useful.</comment>


How are HN points calculated? - <AUTHOR>

Are points given all at once? I assume no points are given for reposting an article previously posted...Anybody know?<p>Are points all vanity anyways? <comment><USER2> Any points given to a repost are given to a repost, however there is a dup detector that out and out prevents you from posting duplicates.(though it doesn't stop people from doing stupid crap like posting the printer friendly version of an already posted article.) It is nice enough to redirect you to the already posted article if it detects the repost.

Points have certain powers mostly related to points(you have to have so many before you can down vote.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Figured it out, the arrows are interactive.

this is grassroots baby.</comment>


Jair Bolsonaro was elected president of Brazil. What are his policies? - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-45982501 <comment><USER3> Sell out and cut down the amazon: [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/24/bolsonaro- back...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/24/bolsonaro-backers-wage- war-on-the-rainforest)

</comment><comment><USER3> Some things he has said:

        "I am in favor of torture you know that. [...] This country will only change with civil war, killing thousands. If some innocents die, that's OK, it happens" . "Let's fusillade petralhas (slang for the opposing political party)". He also praised Coronel Brilhante Ustra as true patriot in Brazilian Congress. Ustra was a torturer known for electrocuting, raping and beating women and then bringing their children to see them while covered in blood and vomit. There are also reports of inserting live rats into women's vaginas.

        "Minorities have to bow down to the majority [...] Minorities [should] adequate themselves or simply disappear".

        "Being gay is result of lack of beating"

        "Women shouldn't have the same salary because they get pregnant", Telling a congresswoman she "doesn't deserve to be raped by him"

        "My son wouldn't date a black woman, he was well educated".

        "Pinochet did what had to be done"

sources @ [https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/9s7ar7/jair_bols...](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/9s7ar7/jair_bolsonaro_elected_president_of_brazil/e8mmr2c/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Reposting what I said in a related thread:

As a gay man, I have no words to describe how frightened I am right now - <USER2> will be for the next 4 years at least.

May God have mercy of us all.

<comment><USER5> Many good friends of mine are thinking about moving abroad. Have you thought about that?

<comment><USER6> Not a real option for some of us.

<comment><USER5> I'm sad it may be the case for you. We are working on how to make that easier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Follow the constitution, stop systematic corruption, improve the economy and foment industry creating conditions for 14 million people to go back to work, decentralisation of the central government, maintain the food and housing assistance by the previous government, sell off national companies that are inefficient while retaining and improving the strategic ones, reduce the size of the government from 30 odd ministers to about 15, simplify and remove bureaucracy to make business and the country flow, reform the pension system, reduce the government debt which 50% of its income on interest, open the market to promote more international trade, don't raise taxes and simplify where possible. He will make sure the police force are better equipped with intelligence and arms to combat the organised crime and terrorist groups (FARC) who are far better armed and hopefully that will promote the end of the daily terrorism experienced in the larger cities, reducing the 60,000 killings per annum. Hopefully there will be less kidnapping, less robbery followed by executions, people may be able to walk on the streets at night again. Maybe. Anything that goes against these improvements or any sign of policies that could remove the protection of the most fragile members of society, risks to environment, any type of discrimination, should be repudiated vehemently. There is plenty of good new Federal Deputies and a solid centre (centrao) in the national Congress who will oppose and vote against anything that would harm the democratic society that Brazil has built over the last 30 years. Let's hope the opposition is clever and constructive. Unfortunately, as seen in the past, the opposition tries to sabotage and destruct, working for self interest, rather than for the good of the country. I did not vote for Bolsonaro, he does not represent me. I do not vote for PT or Haddad, they do not represent me. BUT there was a democratic elections and one of them is now responsible to fulfill his promises and the people will be paying a lot of attention. If he does anything stupid, there will be a lot of protests, the people will go to the streets and demand the right thing is done. It is now time to work hard and make it work. Enough division, enough arguments, one nation, no matter gender, skin colour or sexual preference. Let's work together for you and for the country. Wherever your are and live!

</comment><comment><USER5> It's hard to say what his policies will be. He's been using contradicting information from the start, contradicting and being contradicted by his finance minister and vice-president.

I have a really bad feeling about this.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> More guns for everyone he says.

Easing the license for gun ownership will be a disaster in the long run, and that will take a concentrated effort over a long period of time to undo. Hard if not Close impossible in Brazil.

</comment><comment><USER8> 1920's all over again. Civil wars to follow.

<comment><AUTHOR> Staggering similarities, I was thinking the same thing. A friend was saying that people have the ability to see the future and that is as easy as reading history. People are so predictive that their mistakes are like patterns</comment></comment>


Gopher Gala 2016 Winners - <AUTHOR> http://gophergala.com/blog/gopher/gala/2016/02/05/winners-2016/ <comment><USER2> Gopher Gala was a very well run world wide event, with lots of great projects that resulted. I hope everyone had a fun time participating and learned more about Golang.

I had the privilege of judging Gopher Gala this year.

Congrats to Goad. I ranked it highly too.

I've really enjoyed how benchmarking is handled in Go. The testing library comes with tools out of the box [1], and boom is one of the first programs where I saw the true elegance of the language [2].

Goad continues this tradition by putting a sharp benchmark utility "in the cloud" which is incredibly useful for distributed testing.

The AWS Lambda bit is a really interesting backend choice. Lambda only supports NodeJS, Python and Java out of the box. But thanks to the awesome toolchain, it's trivial to compile a golang binary and stuff it in the Lambda execution environment.

It's architecture is simple and extremely powerful [3].

[1] [https://golang.org/pkg/testing/#B](https://golang.org/pkg/testing/#B) [2] [https://github.com/rakyll/boom](https://github.com/rakyll/boom) [3] [https://goad.io/assets/diagram.2205b67cd43c5d0b9cb9698b88436...](https://goad.io/assets/diagram.2205b67cd43c5d0b9cb9698b88436524.svg)

</comment><comment><USER3> I saw MeshBird[1] on GitHub the other day and while I haven't tried it out yet I really love the idea.

[1][https://github.com/meshbird/meshbird](https://github.com/meshbird/meshbird)

<comment><USER4> That one also piqued my interest. I am however still trying to understand what it gets you over something like OpenVPN. Maybe it is simply an alternative?

<comment><USER3> If I understood it correctly it would be an alternative to OpenVPN but without central server or configuration, you run meshbird on every node setting it up with a one liner.

<comment><USER5> :+1:

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I saw the headline and immediately thought: Gopher? Do people still use that over HTTP?

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I was hoping for a roundup of interesting gopherspaces.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Gophernotes[0] looks like a great addition to Jupyter. Does it support the image package[1] for output? It's not clear from the documentation.

[0] [https://github.com/gophergala2016/gophernotes](https://github.com/gophergala2016/gophernotes)

[1] [https://golang.org/pkg/image/](https://golang.org/pkg/image/)

</comment><comment><USER9> "Thunderbird - Elegant WebSockets in Go"

Probably runs best on Alpine.</comment>


The Most Amazing Bowling Story Ever - <AUTHOR> http://www.dmagazine.com/Home/D_Magazine/2012/July/The_Most_Amazing_Bowling_Story_Ever_Bill_Fong.aspx <comment><USER2> Video: [http://frontburner.dmagazine.com/2012/06/25/video-of-bill- fo...](http://frontburner.dmagazine.com/2012/06/25/video-of-bill-fongs-big- bowling-moment/)

<comment><USER2> As an avid bowler, this video/story sends chills down my spine. Being so close to the Big Win and not quite getting there, it's very sad indeed...

But, he got a couple 300 games, and that's nothing to be ashamed of.</comment></comment>


On the Apple Tablet, the iPhone and the ARM processor - <AUTHOR> http://frim.tumblr.com/post/319813379/on-the-apple-tablet-the-iphone-and-the-arm-processor

<comment><USER2> The most interesting thing I took from this argument was the musing on PA Semi and how they'd tie in. I know at the time they were acquired there were a lot of musings on what exactly the purpose was, but the ARM licensee situation with a custom chip design as described in the article makes a whole lot of sense.

</comment><comment><USER3> This article makes a big assumption that the tablet will be closely related to the iPhone, sharing the same OS, for example, and being compatible with iPhone apps. This seems to go against prevailing opinion (see Gruber, for example).

<comment><USER4> I agree with the article. There are three choices for the Tablet: iPhone OS, Desktop OSX or a whole new variant. It makes no sense to me for Apple to expend effort on adapting a whole new OS and Desktop OSX just isn't suited for the tablet environment (which is why they had to adapt a new version for the iPhone in the first place)

Also, does anyone really think Apple isn't looking at leveraging the app store's momentum for the tablet? Many of the tablet stories (most notably the WSJ) have even suggested Apple is actively courting iPhone developers to adapt their apps to the tablet.

So again either they adapted a whole new OSX variant just for the tablet AND went to the effort of having it emulate the iPhone OS or they're just using the iPhone OS. Which one of those sounds more likely to you?

<comment><USER5>
        Desktop OSX just isn't suited for the tablet environment

I don't know about that. OS X has had an on-screen keyboard and "ink" capabilities built-in for quite a while. The hand writing recognition is pretty good. Unfortunately, without dedicated Apple hardware, application support has been little to none.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I will be disappointed if an Apple Tablet is released without stylus support. And I'm not sure if that is possible with the iPhone OS as-is (I'm just not that familiar with the SDK).

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think the on-screen capabilites of OS X have ever been designed for (multi-)touch screens, but rather for tablet devices like the Wacom's.

<comment><USER6> Right, but a cintiq that runs an OS would be pretty killer ;)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Five ways work will change in the future - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/nov/29/five-ways-work-will-change-future-of-workplace-ai-cloud-retirement-remote <comment><USER2> "People don't necessarily want to work from 9am to 5pm in an office any more. They want more flexible work, both in terms of the hours and the location," (Vassili van der Mersch, Sevendays)

I can only agree with that ! Sad though just a few professions can enjoy such flexibility (coders, translators) - I did not put "designers" in it cose I believe the "sales process" is better to be face-to-face. I don't see how it could evolve more ? VR could help ?

</comment><comment><USER3> Once you get into your fifties, getting hired as an engineer in the US gets much harder. A lot of people (myself included) have had to retire early as there's no market for older engineers in the area of the country we live in. I would prefer to be working, but employers in my area have other ideas.</comment>


Why is the electric car a hoax? (@ 28 minute mark) - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.tv/disrupt/watch?id=Z5eXJxMTr_WbLAPuRbP7iFsyEejWofj2

<comment><AUTHOR> The idea that the world will be cleaner place if everyone drives a EV is BS. The electricity to power such cars will still come from coal fired power plants. If you want to make the world a cleaner place, support clean technologies like wind or solar. EV is not the solution.</comment>


A USB IR to resurrect old remote controls - <AUTHOR> https://www.crowdsupply.com/longan-lab/irduino

<comment><USER2> It seem can be used as an USB HID based device.</comment>


Berkeley City Council fairly prioritizes issues with Reweighted Range Voting - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@antagonist/fairness-in-planning-re-weighted-range-voting-and-the-berkeley-city-council-50a5c1e85ee0 <comment><AUTHOR> OC - AMA.</comment>


Carriers blame the iPhone for data caps and increased upgrade fees - <AUTHOR> http://www.bgr.com/2012/08/06/iphone-data-caps-upgrade-fees-att-verizon/ <comment><USER2> "To hear the carriers tell it, the iPhone is a major inhibitor to their profits as last year they were "only" generating wireless service profit margins in the 38% to 42% range."

It would seem pretty simple then - stop carrying and supporting the iPhone, and they would have higher profit margins. This is basic math. If they want higher profit margins, drop iPhone.

Wait... what? They want higher profit margins _and_ higher revenues? Perhaps those days are slipping away, and they may have to deal with higher revenues and 'only' 20% profit margins.

Uh oh - what if that happens? We'll stop seeing all the innovations from carriers we've seen over the past 20 years like...

Oh yeah, we haven't really seen any. SMS spam? That's been the only change in my wireless life I can directly attribute to wireless carriers, other than wireless service itself. Is there anything else I'm missing?

<comment><USER3> _We'll stop seeing all the innovations from carriers we've seen over the past 20 years like... Oh yeah, we haven't really seen any._

I don't want to be in the position of defending the cellphone networks too much, but things like 3G and LTE upgrades to cell towers aren't easy or free. Neither were the 4G auctions.

<comment><USER4> Profit is calculated after capital purchases are taken into account. The profit margins should include the amortized costs of the tower upgrades.

<comment><USER3> Sure, but the OP was suggesting that the networks haven't innovated. I'd say LTE is an innovation.

<comment><USER5> Not to be sour, but an innovation in what? The first cellular network was a radio tower with a backhaul supporting handsets. LTE is a radio tower with a backhaul supporting handsets.

<comment><USER6> What sort of innovation are you looking for?

Your analogy could just as well be used like: the first food preparation was mixing together ingredients, sometimes with heat. Modern cooking is mixing together ingredients, sometimes with heat.

I don't particularly love my carrier, but I have a choice of several and they bring me mostly-available mostly-quite-high-speed service for a small fraction of my paycheck. It would've blown me away 20 years ago to have such service on a wired connection.

<comment><USER5> That's my point, although I'm not sure my argument is illuminating much. Why do they request applause for selling what is essentially an unchanging utility? Data goes to and from the handset.

Lower latency, cheaper, wider range, higher volume, diffserved, sorted, tabulated, billed, whatever, sure: if you define implementation improvements as "innovations" then the carriers are innovating. But the thing the customer consumes is the same as the first day they lit up the first network: timely data to a computationally-capable handset.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> More BGR spam.

[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087239639044354550457756...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443545504577567283530764706.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> This problem will solve itself (at least in europe) now that 'share your broadband and you can use other people's shared broadband connection' schemes are popping up everywhere.

The telco's have had a monopoly position for too long. The consumer does _not_ care if his call is routed over the internet, skype, broadband or 3g, he just wants his connection, and wants it cheap.

Data limits and increased prices are not the way to solve this, evolving the infrastructure is.

And don't tell me they need to make huge investments. They've got a vastly automated infrastructure and millions of customers that they're leeching off monthly.

<comment><USER9> My router has built in software to participate in these broadband sharing schemes but frankly they scare the shit out of me, so I don't touch them.

Firstly , I'd be amazed if the TOS for my from most domestic ISPs actually allow you to "resell" your connection in such a way.

Secondly what happens if somebody uses your connection for nefarious deeds, how can you prove it wasn't you?

<comment><USER10> How can they prove it WAS you? This is why it makes sense to avoid locking down a connection. If someone breaks in and does something illegal, you'll have a much tougher time proving it wasn't you than with a wide-open network.

<comment><USER11> With that you have to balance the threat to your network. There are many widely-supported encryption standards that are incredibly hard to break, hard enough that no one will reasonably try. However if you leave it wide open, you're not only allowing your access to be used by everyone for everything, you're also allowing them free access to every device on your network.

If you're in a densely populated area, someone could spend the time to break your encryption from their own home. But if they're doing that, they're going to be doing worse once you let them in. Open wifi will only compound your issues. If you're not within range of your neighbors, you'll probably notice someone sitting outside for long enough (weeks/months/years) to break your encryption. Long enough to call the police.

Basically, if you're worried about a possible legal case involving the use of your network and your defense strategy is to open your network, you might be in much more immediate trouble by allowing people in. You'd still be on the hook for the activities on your network, but now your bank account has been drained by the guys who did nothing more than drive by your house with a laptop so now you don't have the money for a legal defense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It is so frustrating that these carriers continue to have such a strong hold on customers. They are true monopolies and their desire to have their bottom lines raised is obviously more important than any type of innovation on the technology front. Eventually I think we'll see the same breakup/restrictions of these large carriers in the same way AT&T's land lines were done.

</comment><comment><USER13> 37 million phones in Q1. $30/month for data. Seems like the billion dollars a month could help offset some of those expenses.</comment>


Sentiment-sensing software could aid in weeding hostile online comments - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=sentiment-sensing-software-could-ai-2010-09-29

<comment><USER2> Youtube would be a silent wasteland.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> and a link to the paper, "Anger Management: Using Sentiment Analysis to Manage Online Communities"

<http://research.yahoo.com/pub/3352>

</comment><comment><USER3> Bastards! ;)</comment>


Ask HN: Should you find funding for your startup if you're freelancing to live? - <AUTHOR> Hi, I'm a 20 yo developer, I'm currently working on an MVP that I plan on launching soon. I worked on another project before, I left before launch because of personal problems(which are solved now). I'm currently freelancing part-time to pay for my expenses while working on my project(I have a long term contract with one client).
Should I spend time and resources on trying to get funding to be able to work full time on the project? I want to apply to a program extremely similar to YC(in another country), I don't know if this is the best use of my time and resources.
I'm fairly confident in my ability to build a good product and to market it decently, I'm not so confident about my ability to convince investors, pitching and powerpoints aren't part of my strengths for now, also I don't think I look really good on paper, I'm pretty sure I'm good at what I'm doing, but convincing investors of this could to be hard.
My goal isn't really to launch a huge company, so I don't know if this could cause a lot of issues when dealing with investors, I don't know if I should try to hide or minimize this when looking for funding, or maybe try other forms of funding(crowdfunding, loans etc...)
I agree with Paul Graham who said on Lecture 3 of "How to create a startup", that launching a startup(especially a would-be unicorn) at my age is probably a bad idea, that it's too soon to potentially dedicate a decade of your life to your project if it gain traction, and that you should probably "live" a bit first(travel, trying different things..).
So my goal is mostly to be able to work on an interesting project that I chose while being "relatively free" in how I work, and maybe if I'm lucky reach "financial freedom" in a few years, but I don't think that aiming to build a unicorn would be an optimal choice.
What would you do if you were in my position? <comment><USER2> > So my goal is mostly to be able to work on an interesting project that I > chose while being "relatively free" in how I work, and maybe if I'm lucky > reach "financial freedom" in a few years, but I don't think that aiming to > build a unicorn would be an optimal choice.

Please do NOT raise money if these are your goals. Investors will not bring you freedom. In fact, they will bring the opposite. Check out Startups for the Rest of Us [0] and Indie Hackers [1]. You will find dozens of founders and companies that have created freedom through profitable internet businesses without investors.

[0] [https://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/](https://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/) [1] [https://www.indiehackers.com/](https://www.indiehackers.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Why do you need investment? I know there are stories of the gaxillionaire kiddos from VC to IPO like Zuck, but I suspect dragging in a lot of stakeholders with their complications, interests and control hurts more often than it helps. Friends and family money can be well-intentioned, but "angels", VCs, etc. are purely profit motivated.

</comment><comment><USER4> > I'm currently freelancing part-time to pay for my expenses while working on > my project(I have a long term contract with one client)

That one long-term client is a large risk. Try to diversify your income, so that it's not too dependent on that client (assuming you don't pursue funding). The task of an entrepreneur is to eliminate risk, rather than take risk (pop culture gets that wrong). Risk is what threatens the viability of a given thing (whether your freestanding financial condition, or your MVP).

> Should I spend time and resources on trying to get funding to be able to > work full time on the project?

Ultimately - as you probably realize - nobody will be able to answer that, other than you. HN can be a good sounding board however.

> I'm not so confident about my ability to convince investors ... also I don't > think I look really good on paper

Knock them out with the product. A great product can cure other weaknesses. Everybody has weaknesses, that will never go away, even though you can lessen their depth.

If you don't like powerpoint, don't use it. Powerpoint is ridiculous. You have the best presentation tool there is: your product, make it the center of the presentation.

> My goal isn't really to launch a huge company, so I don't know if this could > cause a lot of issues when dealing with investors, I don't know if I should > try to hide or minimize this when looking for funding

Don't give investors your position on what you're trying to do in that specific regard. It will cause issues with investors; they will appreciate your honesty and it will instantly turn most of them off. Even if they're ok with funding smaller ventures, they won't like what appears to be pessimism about their investment potential (that's how it will come across).

If by unlikely odds you create the next unicorn with your MVP, you can always play a different role in the company other than President / CEO.

> loans

Do not take on loans. Not unless you have a solidly cash flowing business that could benefit from borrowing to fund faster growth.

> that launching a startup(especially a would-be unicorn) at my age is > probably a bad idea

Launching a start-up at your age is perfectly fine. Get the would-be unicorn stuff out of your head. The odds are comically against that happening under all circumstances, for nearly all entrepreneurs. It's one in a million. If you're that fortunate, deal with it then.

> So my goal is mostly to be able to work on an interesting project that I > chose while being "relatively free" in how I work, and maybe if I'm lucky > reach "financial freedom" in a few years

Based on what you're describing, I'd avoid raising funding. Venture capital is an obligation, it puts a new kind of stress and demand on your situation and what you can do, it limits your freedom to pursue your product as you see fit.

If you can stand to do it, I'd turn up the heat on the consulting work, boost your income there, and continue to fund your MVP via that means indefinitely. That enables you to own 100% of your MVP. If your product does well, or you're very, very certain that you have created something extraordinary (it's obviously very easy to be delusional about one's own creations), then you could still look at venture funding at any time. The more successful your product is at the point of raising funding, the greater your negotiating leverage.

> but I don't think that aiming to build a unicorn would be an optimal choice

Never aim to build a unicorn. Never, never, never, never, never, never, never. I wanted to add a lot more nevers in there, but you get the point. Don't let your mindset go there, it can only cause problems.</comment>


Touch Typing – Why and how I relearned typing twice in one year - <AUTHOR> https://www.romanzolotarev.com/typing/ <comment><AUTHOR> On lobsters: [https://lobste.rs/s/5bbul7/touch_typing_why_how_i_relearned_...](https://lobste.rs/s/5bbul7/touch_typing_why_how_i_relearned_typing/comments/wusl7a)

On reddit: [https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/5dp6dq...](https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/5dp6dq/touch_typing_why_and_how_i_relearned_typing_twice/)</comment>


Medium acquires Embedly (YC W10) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/the-story/a-new-team-embeds-e3c69a74ee8e <comment><USER2> Congrats guys! Very excited to see what the future holds with your powers combined.

</comment><comment><USER3> [deleted]

<comment><USER4> For the record, Wordpress and Twitter were never clients.

We were profitable and growing.

Good comment though.</comment></comment>


A City That Is Moving 9 Kilometers Down the Road - <AUTHOR> http://nextcity.org/features/view/the-city-that-is-moving-9-kilometers-down-the-road <comment><USER2> This is an interesting article to me, and fairly near to my heart--I'm the founder of a small "remote-enabled" startup based in Washington State that moved to Kiruna for a year. I'm 6 months into the trip now, typing this within site of the mine in question.

The interesting part of this article to me was the part that discussed the anthropologist's findings, towards the end of the article. It confirms what I've seen anecdotally as well--the men are mostly ambivalent, some slightly optimistic, and the women are slightly anxious. It's a big project, but the timeframe of multiple years greatly reduces the stress on people. The businesses are changing plans slowly to accommodate, as are government offices and government-owned housing authorities, but there is no rush.

I've already seen a bit of the effect on my emotions--the first time I traveled here, I got on and off at the old train station, which is now on its way to demolition. Physical places that hold memories are for me a sort of safety, and seeing them go is slightly painful. It would be hard, I imagine, to watch my parent's home be destroyed.

Overall, the move makes me confident of mankind's ability to cope with climate change. Kiruna is only a small town, and it's moving only a short ways away, but it is a massive undertaking that requires a lot of money and (perhaps more difficultly) a lot of cooperation. If Kiruna can do it, larger towns can too, at least when faced with an obvious existential threat.

<comment><USER3> I can understand a timescale measured in years is less stressful than one measured in months, but it sounds almost as if they're going to the opposite extreme and inducing stress by leaving people for decades in a condemned and depopulating environment.

A move that's first announced in 2004, doesn't actually start until 2018 and should be _almost_ completed in 2050, according to the article, sounds painfully slow.

<comment><USER4> _" condemned and depopulated"_

That sounds like the opposite of the plan in the article:

 _When trying to imagine how Kiruna's move will work, it helps to think of a glacier edging slowly down a valley. The ground covered in a century will be remarkable, but the place won't change that radically from day to day. The relocation and redevelopment will be a gradual process occurring over several generations. A central tenet of the plan is that all development will be contagious; the new will be built on the edge of the old to prevent the appearance of a break in the city's whole.

"One key strategy is leaving no one behind," Lindstedt says. "The city needs to connect all current residents during the whole relocation process, rather than creating a new satellite. New parts of the city are placed far enough away from the iron ore extraction to reassure residents long-term, but it has to be close enough to the existing parts to keep the community together."_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The title is incorrect. It is only the downtown area that will be relocated, not the whole city. And it will be moved 2.5 km, not 9 km. The downtown area is currently geographically located on the west edge of the city, and will move to the east edge of the city, see the map in this article: [http://ecosistemaurbano.org/english/ecosistema-urbano- prequa...](http://ecosistemaurbano.org/english/ecosistema-urbano-prequalifies- for-a-planning-competition-in-kiruna-sweden/) I have no idea where the "9 km" claim comes from. It is not quoted in the article. This is possibly a mix-up with an unrelated city mentioned in the article (Newtok in Alaska) which is considering relocating "9 miles" away.

Edit: @troymc: the BBC article is likely incorrect. Notice it quotes no sources. Maybe it assumed the whole city will move. Or maybe it takes into account population growth from people moving _from other cities_ to Kiruna, because of the mine's expansion and increased economic/job opportunities. Either way, it is pretty obvious from all the relocation maps you find online that only the western edge of the city will move. Even the rendering at the original article [http://nextcity.org/images/made/2033_plan_1200_862.png](http://nextcity.org/images/made/2033_plan_1200_862.png) shows that only the western edge will disappear (compare it with a Google Maps satellite view).

<comment><USER6> A BBC News article says, "Over the next 20 years, 20,000 people will move into new homes, built around a new town centre…" [1]

Wikipedia says the population of Kiruna is 18,148 (from the 2010 census). [2]

In other words, almost everyone in Kiruna is moving, eventually.

[1] [http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26447507](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26447507)

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiruna](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiruna)

<comment><USER7> Also according to Wikipedia, it is going to put the city centre here [1]. While big parts of the town will be torn down there are at least some areas that will remain.

[1] [https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=67.848757,20.2993544&z=15&ci...](https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=67.848757,20.2993544&z=15&cid=0&q=67%C2%B051%2701.0%22N+20%C2%B018%2702.0%22E&output=classic&dg=opt)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Kiruna is in an unfortunate predicament, but if I had a company willing to relocate my home, family, and community 10 miles down the road in order to save the only job I would ever have in the region (and a well-paying one, at that), I think I'd be pretty happy about it.

And this is far from the only city to have ever been moved (as the article noted). A much more tragic story is that of those towns and villages in Palestine, where communities of over 700,000 people were uprooted and families forced to relocate wholesale to refugee settlements when Israel was declared in 1948. These settlements in Gaza and West Bank that have retained the names of the original communities whence their inhabitants came several generations before.

<comment><USER2> It's in a predicament, but I don't know if I agree that it is unfortunate. It actually gives the entire town a goal, and I think it's going to revitalize the town and the people that live in it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Meanwhile, the imminent move offers people little incentive to refurbish their properties and as an inevitable result, the city has become rundown."

[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Kiruna,+firstname.lastname@example.com...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Kiruna,+firstname.lastname@example.com,20.225604,3a,75y,224.04h,91.88t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sBri-9FZzo6uBGKmBEvmqRg!2e0!4m2!3m1!1s0x45d08e2ae4257c2b:0x4034506de8c8660)

Looking around the place, while it's not exactly Paris it does seem the author has a different definition of "rundown" than most people.

<comment><USER2> It might be rundown compared to some places, but I disagree with the assessment that town is rundown as a whole. The mine is slowly buying up the properties that are going to be affected, and are tearing down the buildings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> In 1900, Galveston, TX, was moved about 10 feet vertically. After a major hurricane, a big seawall was built. Then the buildings behind it were jacked up and the ground filled in,. It worked quite well; when the next hurricane hit in 1910, the damage was far less.

<comment><USER11> Chicago too, though for sanitation reasons much more than flooding: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago)

<comment><USER12> Both Prague and Portland were raised by a level. So too have other cities around the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > _Located well within the Arctic Circle, the bleak, almost unpopulated region > around Kiruna_

That sentence makes me think of some of the s__t-hole mining cities and towns in and around the Arctic around here in Alaska / Yukon and NWT.

The photos in the article show that by North American standards, it's an extremely beautiful city.

<comment><USER14> I _think_ only two of those pictures were actual photographs of the city; the rest were artists' depictions of the new city. Of the two photos, the first is from a great distance, in winter, and could portray a pretty nasty-looking place covered in snow; the second is of wilderness on the outskirts (?) of town, again covered in snow.

No idea if Kiruna is actually a nasty-looking place or not, but it's possible.

<comment><USER15> Everything looks nice when covered in snow or filmed from far enough away: [https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=2...](https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=2018&bih=1157&q=kiruna&oq=kiruna&gs_l=img.3..0l10.887.2040.0.26220.127.116.11.0.0.0.231.805.0j3j1.4.0.msedr...0...1ac.1.60.img..4.4.801.U-GvVTRzVeg)

But more realistically, here's downtown Kiruna today: [https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiruna#mediaviewer/File:Kiruna...](https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiruna#mediaviewer/File:Kiruna_centrum.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Interesting. I expect if I were moving a city I would first build a layer for transport and utilities, and then build the city on top of that. In the past we've built cites on the ground and then dug sewers and subways etc underneath. But if you built first a layer that was going to be the "underneath" of the city, and then built the city on top (including parks and lawns and what not, you could really do a good job of making sure the connections were solid.

<comment><USER2> The problem, of course, is that there's always a resource that's limited. There's not unlimited funds to build ideal utilities etc in a small town...

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Reminds me of town of Most (my grandparents lived near): [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_%28Most_District%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_%28Most_District%29)

Big part of Most was demolished (and a new center was built about 2-3 km away) to allow for mining, only the church was moved, which was an interesting engineering accomplishment.

</comment><comment><USER18> Ah, yes, "plan B". That was a great episode of the Simpsons'. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trash_of_the_Titans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trash_of_the_Titans)

On a more serious note, it's kinda scary to what lengths people will go to continue doing what they've always done, even if it destroys their very homes. I'm not saying they're wrong to want to keep their jobs, but, humans operate on such a huge scale and without a lot of foresight, and it's scary to think of how that will play out with 9 billion humans today and even more tomorrow.

<comment><USER19> > On a more serious note, it's kinda scary to what lengths people will go to > continue doing what they've always done, even if it destroys their very > homes.

The thing is, in this case, _not_ continuing to do what they've always done would effectively also destroy their homes. The mine _is_ the town, and ceasing production to save the existing town site would just result in a lot of empty buildings once ~60% of the population has to move elsewhere for work, and the remainder follow because they were only there to support the miner population.

<comment><USER2> Exactly. In fact, a similar thing happened to Kiruna some years ago, when the iron price stayed low for some years. The mine slowed production, and house prices and rent prices followed accordingly. It was a hard time for the residents here.

The iron price recently dropped, but for many years it's been high, and it is currently quite hard to find somewhere to live, especially because of the price controls on rent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I like the idea of high density right to the edge of town. You get all the walkability but also green (or white that far north) space right nearby. I think the ideal might have some characteristics of fractals to allow all the dense areas to border on the empty areas.

</comment><comment><USER21> AARGH - why is this article talking about a city in Sweden, using kilometers all over the place, and then suddenly, temperature is given in Fahrenheit???

</comment><comment><USER22> Towns move. Shawneetown IL was moved a couple of miles away from the Ohio River, after the flood of 1937 wrecked the original location.

</comment><comment><USER23> Huh. Every summer Iowa moves a town of 20,000 people 400+ miles across the state, on bicycles. Its called RAGBRAI.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm surprised that mining iron in such conditions can be profitable. Isn't it incredibly abundant (~5% of the earth's crust)?

<comment><USER25> Most of the iron in the crust is bound in silicate or carbonate minerals, and energetically expensive to extract.

FWIW, the Kiruna orebody is the biggest known continuous body of iron ore in the world, 4 km wide, 80 meters thick on average, and of unknown length. See [https://www.lkab.com/en/Future/Urban- Transformations/Why/Wha...](https://www.lkab.com/en/Future/Urban- Transformations/Why/What-is-Iron-Ore/The-Ore-in-Kiruna/) .

Or quoting from [http://www.mining- technology.com/projects/kiruna/](http://www.mining- technology.com/projects/kiruna/) :

> Since mining began at the site over 100 years ago, Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara > AB (LKAB) has produced over 950Mt of ore, yet only one third of the original > ore body has been extracted.

<comment><USER2> Also, the iron ore in Kiruna is magnetite, and particularly rich in iron. This allows the iron to be extracted using magnets rather then the chemicals needed for hematite, the more abundant cousin of magnetite. Also, the trains used to transport the iron pellets to the coast for sea transport use very little energy, due to the regenerative braking used during the loaded trip down to sea level.

<comment><USER26> The part about trains sound really interesting. Do you mean that the energy gained through regenerative braking while a loaded train moves downhill is enough to move an empty train back up the mountain?

If so, how do they store the energy? Do the trains carry massive batteries, or do they draw power from (and contribute back to) the grid?

<comment><USER25> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iore](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iore) \- "From Riksgränsen on the national border to the Port of Narvik, the trains use only a fifth of the power they regenerate. The regenerated energy is sufficient to power the empty trains back up to the national border."

It's pumped into the grid.

<comment><USER27> Wow, like those funicular railways where one car acts as the counterweight for the other.

<comment><USER25> And where the passengers only want to ride it from the top to the bottom.

<comment><USER27> True. Oddly enough, I've been hiking in regions that were ski resorts during the winter, and they sometimes ran the chair lifts during the summer. We'd use them for hiking. There were some published hikes that involved lifts, buses, trains, etc. Perhaps out of a sense of sportsmanship, we tended to ride down, but never up.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>